Watching it happen, it was hard to appreciate the magnitude of the achievement. The big blue roadster hardly made any...
We aren’t timeless, but our artifacts can be, and the achievements they represent should live forever. That’s at least some...
Anyone who saw the terrifying tape of Mario Andretti’s 200-mph “blowover” at Indianapolis on April 23rd will easily visualize the...
One sunny spring day in Spain, twenty-three Grand Prix drivers shut themselves into a van in a race paddock, refusing to come out and drive their F1 cars. The event promoters threatened to seize the cars and all other team assets. Feelings escalated almost to the point of guns. Tragically,...
Can Chris Pook save open-wheel road racing in America? Whatever the answer turns out to be, I reckon every reader...
Did your heart rev up when you heard Dan Gurney was trying to resurrect his old Eagle F1 team? Dan...
Peering forward along Brian Blain’s long blue hood, I could see far back into the past. That square radiator cowl shouldering the air aside, those high, wood-spoked wheels whirling along the whizzing road, my boot planted firmly on a stout bronze stirrup to jam my butt into the buckboard-like seat;...
Among the array of anniversaries we’ve been celebrating recently, one is a particular standout for me. It’s now 50 years...
Some of us – we know who we are – go all slack in the knees before certain racing machines....
In racing, we sometimes get to cheer wins that come first-time-out. At the other end of the scale lies the sad saga of the Grand Sport Corvettes, racers conceived amid dreams of competing at Le Mans. It took nearly 40 years for that story to find a happy ending. Today,...
In motor racing we meet some very able people, and some very fine ones. It’s wonderful when they’re the same...
Mark Donohue shut down his turbo Offy and made one last left turn into the Indianapolis victory circle. Obviously it...
We have a winner! Just as we hoped, a VRJ reader has recognized one of the “Mystery Cars” shown in the February 2002 issue (page 10), and identified its driver. It’s the handsome sports racer bearing no. 47 and a large overhead wing, which I photographed in the pit lane...
Apparently the new Euro is a success. Friends from overseas tell me the changeover to a single, common currency in...
Can it be 50 whole years since the first Sebring 12-hour? I guess I’ve seen this coming, but still, it...
How sharp are your detective skills? Can you ID either of these old racecars? This is not a trick question. We don’t know the answers (yet). It’s just that we find ourselves obsessed with finding out. Aren’t juicy little mysteries like this a big part of what we all love...
While indulging one of my secret vices the other day – watching motorcycle racing on TV – I started thinking...
You know that brief sense of disjointedness between us and some celebrity we meet who up to then had been...
Exciting; that’s how Jackie Stewart stands in my memory. There’s a lot more to be said of the three-time World...
A sudden snarl under my elbow, the mighty baritone of a big, twin-cam six with open pipes. Then a flash...
Forty years! That’s how long it’s been since our man Philip Toll Hill, Jr., became the first American to win the World Driving Championship. There are two ways to look at such a span of time. I’ll bet some of us – maybe even Phil himself – would like to...
Dan Gurney once tried to show me how to wring the neck of a recalcitrant racecar to squeeze out that...
My colleague Tim Considine cordially feels I was unfair in my recent column about Cooper’s development of mid-engined race cars....
Because I came to automobile appreciation late in life – not until 17, when my New York State learner’s permit finally awakened me to the magic of driving – I fear I missed out on an adventure that might have created a different me. Don’t you think a born car...
Sometime in the rainy wee hours of the recent Rolex 24 at Daytona, a race I find myself covering again...
Conception, a friend of mine used to say, “is the biggest word in the English language.” His aphorism came to...
It remains beyond my sight whether the story of life has a happy ending, but I do see that some of us have the knack of living happily. One of the secrets, I think, is to create good that lives on. My friend Bill Devin – I feel that way...
